


cotton

by NicoAndTheNineGalaxies



Series: Vent Fics [15]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: (self-harm references are really vague), Depressed Tyler Joseph, Depression, Food, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Isolation, Quarantine, Sad Tyler Joseph, because I love him, could also be read platonically, could be read as tyler/josh, jim is very briefly mentioned, past self-harm, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24397141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicoAndTheNineGalaxies/pseuds/NicoAndTheNineGalaxies
Summary: Even Tyler himself couldn’t tell things were going downhill until he woke up one morning with his shades drawn tight over his windows, his fingers numb, and a head that felt as if it was filled with cotton.AKA, quarantine and depression are a really shitty mix.
Series: Vent Fics [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1287113
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	cotton

**Author's Note:**

> This is a vent fic, just so you know. Obviously my experiences with depression aren't necessarily universal, but this is how things tend to feel for me.
> 
> TW for depression and very vague references to past self-harm.
> 
> Nico x

Tyler didn’t notice at first and neither did Josh.

Well, Josh couldn’t really notice, obviously, because in quarantine, he was blind to how Tyler was feeling unless Tyler told him outright, and that wasn’t really how these things worked, especially when even Tyler himself couldn’t tell things were going downhill until he woke up one morning (the twenty-sixth? Twenty-seventh? What day was it?) with his shades drawn tight over his windows, his fingers numb, and a head that felt as if it was filled with cotton.

His phone buzzed on his nightstand, twice. Tyler reached over and curled his fingers around it.

Josh.

_ ran past your house this morning :p _

_ are you up yet? _

Tyler didn’t open the messages. If Josh saw that he’d read them without replying, he’d get worried. Tyler wasn’t in the mood to do something stupid, so why make Josh worry?

He’d left his medicine on the kitchen table with a bottle of water, same as always. For a moment, he debated getting out of bed to take it, but ultimately just buried himself under another blanket, shoved his face into his pillow, and closed his eyes. Usually, if he waited, he could fall back asleep.

Not on days like this.

_ It’s not healthy. _ The voice in his head wasn’t really one voice, but the combined voices of everyone who’d ever caught him on a bad day.  _ You need to take your meds. You need to get up. You need to eat. You need to talk to someone. _

It wasn’t as if his thoughts were keeping him there. It was more like he was just so  _ drained, _ so completely spent without even getting out of bed, and if that made it easier for negative thoughts to creep in...well, there wasn’t much he could do about that.

On days he had plans, he could fight back. He could tell himself that there were people counting on him or waiting for him or wanting to see him.

In quarantine, he had no escape routes, just walls.

* * *

Josh called him at one.

Tyler looked at his phone, fingers around it still numb as it buzzed in his hand. Looked at the little green and red buttons to answer or reject the call. Looked at Josh and Jim in the contact photo.

He wasn’t sure how long he just stared, but it was long enough that the buzzing stopped and the screen went dark again.

_ tyler? _

_ you okay, man? _

It was either a few seconds or a few hours later that he got another text - from his brother.

_ Hey, Josh says you’re not answering your phone. What’s up? _

Tyler didn’t reply to that one either.

* * *

He did manage to get out of bed, eventually. He sat up at five thirty and regretted it, since he hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before and sitting up made him dizzy, but he did it, and then he forced himself to stand, which made him dizzier, but he took each step as its own little victory and he made it to the kitchen. He drank half of what was in his water bottle, took his medicine, and chased it with the rest of his water. Then he found some leftover pasta in the fridge, debated eating it cold, and eventually decided against that in favor of putting it in the microwave.

It took a lot out of him.

* * *

He ate the pasta plain. No cheese, no sauce. No energy for it.

It felt like sand in his mouth.

* * *

When he was done with dinner, he went back up to his bedroom to get a blanket. His keyboard was in the corner. It looked like it was mocking him.

Blanket in hand, Tyler forced himself not to collapse into his bed, thinking he could go back downstairs and find something to watch on TV, something that would distract him. He ended up curled into the corner of the couch, under his blanket, staring at the black TV screen.

There was really no telling how long he sat there for. It was a while. He’d seen the sun outside one minute, and it felt like barely a minute later that he looked out and it was dark.

He decided not to look outside again.

* * *

His head still felt like it was filled with cotton.

* * *

Tyler’s doorbell rang.

In quarantine.

It surprised him enough that he stood and actually answered it, and by the time he got there, Josh was standing six feet away from the door - social distancing - looking nervous.

His gaze brightened just a little when he saw Tyler standing there, when Tyler offered him a weak hello.

“Have you been getting my texts?” Josh asked, a little hopeful, like maybe the texts just didn’t go through properly. Like maybe Tyler wasn’t clearly slipping, and fast.

Tyler nodded, and that hope faded.

“...How bad is it?” Josh asked, slow and careful.

“Bad,” Tyler admitted, his voice breaking. “Like, really bad, Josh, and I can’t - “

Josh made a move, almost as if he wanted to step forward, arms open like he was offering a hug.

Then he looked down, took two steps back, and dropped his arms.

“Ty…”

“No, yeah, there’s the whole virus thing, I get it,” Tyler said, and it was really the most he’d spoken all day and somehow his voice just sounded  _ broken. _ “You can’t, like, come in or anything. And I’m not expecting you to do that.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Josh asked, so gentle it made Tyler’s heart ache.

Tyler gave him a tiny, half-hearted, one-shouldered shrug. “Didn’t want to bother you,” he mumbled.

“You’re  _ never _ bothering me, Ty, you know that.”

Tyler shrugged again. “I think I just want to go back to sleep.”

The concern in Josh’s eyes flashed a little brighter, edging into fear-like territory. “Are you safe on your own?”

“Yeah,” Tyler said, nodding. “I’m clean, Josh. I swear.”

The fear ebbed from Josh’s gaze, and Tyler’s head felt a little bit clearer.

_ He trusts me. _

“Okay. If you need anything, I’m a call away or I’m just next door. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Josh looked like he wanted to reach out again, but instead he just ran his fingers through his hair - it was getting long and it looked particularly curly and messy, like he’d been running his fingers through it a lot - and then shoved his hands in his pocket. “Okay. Love you, man.”

Tyler’s heart clenched and he wanted nothing more than to invite Josh in, to sit next to him on the couch and watch shitty old sitcoms together until they fell asleep, but he forced himself not to think about that. “Yeah. Love you too.”

Josh left.

* * *

Tyler didn’t go back to sleep, although that wasn’t for lack of trying.

* * *

The sun rose. His head still felt like it was filled with cotton.


End file.
